초록

A common problem that visitors have to face in big buildings, with several floors, corridors and departments, is their accurate location and orientation. The problem gets even worst when there are a big number of users and they have time constraints. A typical example is a medical centre where the patients have got scheduled doctor's appointments and, in some cases, severe movement difficulties. A possibility for solving this problem is to provide the building with an intelligent system for user detection and orientation. In addition, this strategy would allow to find and locate all the people inside the building and to carry out an individual search if it were necessary. This is the framework we have chosen in this article. We have developed a complete hardware and software system for people detection, location and orientation in this scenario. The hardware part of the system is based on the RFID technology and it has been successfully implemented in a fully operational prototype. The software uses artificial intelligence techniques, specifically planning and scheduling.